An attempt at building the world's largest working cellphone is to be made this week during the GSM Africa conference, in Cape Town, as a joint project between Sony Ericsson and one of its parent companies, Ericsson.
Due to be unveiled to the public on Thursday, 19 October, at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, the phone is to be an exact working model of the Sony Ericsson W850i Walkman phone. However, it will be on a scale of 150 times larger than the usual commercial model.
Ericsson's VP of marketing and communications Goran Soderholm says the project has been in the pipeline for about three months and the new phone will eventually replace a working model of the old Ericsson T320 that is on display at the MTN Science Centre in Cape Town.
"The project is really about education. We want to show people what real features a modern cellphone has. The attempt at setting a world record was really an afterthought," he says.
A verifier from the Guinness Book of World Records is expected to visit the stand during the show.
Soderholm says he is unaware of any Guinness record about the world's largest cellphone.
The phone will be, in every way, an exact replica of the normal model, and will have the ability to make calls, send SMS and MMS, and take photographs.
"Obviously some things are different. For instance, the camera is different," Soderholm says.
He adds that, while the phone is 150 times larger than actual models, radiation levels will not increase in the same way.
"We are very aware that radiation is an issue for some people and there will be nothing out of the ordinary about this phone's levels."
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